Feb 25-26, 2005
My vibe, as it turns out, has leveled out at exactly the right time. Today Terrence, whom I'm understudying, was out sick and I had my first taste of the standby gig. It was my test to see how much I've been paying attention over the past two weeks and how good my notes were. And it was a rite of passage in a way. Virtually all of the cast members have seen one another perform, but no one has seen me until today. I was probably more nervous than I was at my auditions, but everyone helped out, queing me and keeping me pointed in all the right directions while we ran through all that had been staged so far. Though I was far from perfect, I did really well and got some terrific feedback from the stage manager. Man, it felt good to get out on the field and be a player, and I was treated more like one after that.
After running on 100% adrenaline all day, pushing my mental, physical and sensory speed into the red, I was ready for a nice dinner and leisure evening. Most of it was spent on the subway - about three and a half hours - but Patrick and I managed to find excellent Indian Food in Queens and then traveled to the East Village to hang with Maguire and friends. While stopping to pick up a bottle of wine I ran into Maggie, the show's company manager. Small town, this is! Now whenever Maguire has people over, two things are certain: He will always play great old records and the guitars will always come down off the wall. Tonight we were particularly fortunate to have Patrick in the house. He's a terrific player and I've been advised to bring him around more often. He'll like to hear that; he didn't think Maguire liked him.
Saturday was high profile and high energy. Today was kids day, in which company and staff are encouraged to invite their kids and immediate family members to come hang out in 6A. Producer Allan McKeown was in attendance with his wife, Tracy Ullman, who had all of us a little starstruck. This was the first time anyone on the outside would experience the show in any capacity, and it was a landmark in terms of gauging its progress up to this point. We've discovered that we're ahead of schedule. We've been plodding along at a fast pace, as if opening night were looming around the corner, and people were surprised, Ullman in particular, that we still have four weeks left before tech rehearsals begin. We were all left feeling more at ease, and there is time to go back and re-tool some scenes that the directors had questioned earlier.
I also locked down a new place today on 45th street just off 9th Avenue, in Manhattan's west side, just a few minutes' walk from the studios. I put down a deposit in the morning, then walked to Times Square to meet Esmeralda again and give her some stuff to take home. While waiting for her I watched as a couple of cops chased a guy on foot across the square at top speed. It didn't take them long to corner the guy and bust him.
Never a dull moment around here.